[2020] Is production meant to be this much slower?

Hey, this actually is the intention. On release on 4.0.0, we had an issue with crafting being way too fast and it was set back to how it was at 3.0.0, people either don't like it or don't remember it!

There's always ways to speed up the crafting though, power plants, building scroll, shrine buff, lightning rod! Also nuclear structures give x2 output on crafting too!

We are going to monitor this though and consider lowering the length of crafting.

Originally posted by EnderSword: Yeah, I guess I only got the game a couple weeks ago, so I probably only experienced the fast build rates.

So it definitely feels really weird that the main function of this update was to include specific mechanics to make things faster, but even after implementing the 'speed up' mechanics, it's slower than it was before the update...

Just kind of reverses a feeling of progress you had as a player. I can collect resources hundreds of times faster than i could possibly consume them.

EDIT: Another point too btw is the spirit orbs, I'm not sure if Im missing how, but I wish there was a way to use like all spirit orbs without clicking 1000+ times because you get a lot of them by the end and just have to click the sword each time.

A lot of people tend to have in the Millions to trillions of resources, myself included. It's primarily more about what you can do to use as much resources as you can really, I've got a pretty big set up to burn as much as I possibly can.

As for orbs, you're not missing anything I'm afraid, that's the only in-game way to handle them, people usually use auto-clickers to go through them. You can however use mods to also help, but be careful since they can stop steam achievements from being gained! If you do, I'd recommend backing up your save so you can come back to that one when move achievements are added!
If you would like to use mods, I recommend "kyos orbs" as it adds new orbs to the Spirit crystal altar that makes it a lot easier to burn through the stockpile.